In this week’s Hidden Places, UrbanTurf ventures to Foggy Bottom for a closer look at Snow’s Court, a half-block stretch of shrunken rowhouses in the heart of the District’s densest neighborhood.

Snow’s Court sits between 25th and 26th Streets NW, with K Street to the north and I Street to the south (map). It’s near George Washington University Hospital and not far from the Watergate.

The one- and two-bedroom homes on Snow’s Court are surrounded by towering apartment complexes and open onto an alleyway. Advocates for a Foggy Bottom Historic District say Snow’s was one of the city’s first inhabited alleys.

The alley wasn’t always such a desirable place to live, according to a publication from George Washington University, which suggests the court was once “the most disreputable and dangerous section of the city.” In a transcript from a 1914 Senate hearing, the court was listed among those with “the worst reputation of any alleys in the city.”